Injustice and stupidity in Jerusalem

Editorial

Haaretz

Shvat 13, 5765

In July 2004, Israel's cabinet adopted a
decision that was neither made public nor even published in the official
government gazette, Reshumot: to apply the Absentee Property Law to East
Jerusalem, and thereby to confiscate thousands of dunams of land from
owners who live in the West Bank. The reason for the decision was
security-related: Since in practice, West Bank residents are barred from
entering East Jerusalem because of the intifada, the cabinet decided to
enact an official measure that would prevent any use of these lands by
their owners in the future as well, and would explicitly state that
henceforth their property belongs to the State of Israel.

Even
though the owners live only a short distance away from their confiscated
property, their names and addresses are known and no one doubts their
ownership, the cabinet decided to label them "absentees" and apply the law
that enabled the state to take over refugees' lands when the state was
founded, a law which has never been used since.

According to the
law, enacted in 1950, every person who was outside of Israeli territory
between November 29, 1947 and September 1, 1948 was considered an
"absentee," and his assets were transferred to the Custodian of Absentee
Property, with no possibility of compensation or appeal. But even though
the Absentee Property Law remained in force, successive Israeli
governments decided not to apply it to annexed East Jerusalem, because of
the injustice this would wreak. The decision to once again apply this law
has caused thousands of Palestinians, including many who live right next
to their confiscated lands, to lose property overnight worth hundreds of
millions of dollars, and for which no one intends to compensate
them.

It is impossible not to deem the cabinet's decision theft, as
well as an act of state stupidity of the highest order. Israel has already
seized land and property from the Palestinians during the years of
occupation, reducing their living space in order to establish settlements
in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The person responsible for
many of these unnecessary projects was Ariel Sharon, both in his
governmental roles and as someone who himself bought a house in the Arab
Quarter of East Jerusalem. One might have thought that such activity would
cease when Sharon had recognized the need to divide this land between the
two nations. The arbitrary confiscation of property, without suitable
compensation, contradicts this trend.

An article by Meron Rapaport
in today's Haaretz Magazine relates that when East Jerusalem was annexed
in 1968, then attorney general Meir Shamgar decided not to apply the
Absentee Property Law to real estate in Jerusalem that was owned by West
Bank residents. The decision to refrain from paying compensation for
expropriated land today, dozens of years after the state was established -
which, regrettably, was made with the consent of Attorney General Menachem
Mazuz - does no honor to the state.

It is also impossible to accept
the secrecy with which the cabinet makes fateful decisions of this nature,
which unnecessarily damage the fabric of relations between Israel and the
Palestinians. The Absentee Property Law, which might have been tolerable
at the time of the state's establishment and the War of Independence, is
inappropriate 55 years later.